Bound
by CaffeineChic
Summary: An act they played no part in, bound their futures....
1. Default Chapter

Title: Bound 

Disclaimer: Their not mine. And no matter how much I beg Santa to bring me my own Miss Parker and Jarod to play with, he keeps bringing me a minuature drum set instead. So I guess they're still Craig and Steve's. Even if at this point, I don't think they deserve them. Bad owners. Baaaaaaaaad.

Note: So this is gonna be in a few parts. Hopefully. Its sort of kicking my ass up and down the world right now. And this part will probably be revised. 

I usually claw my way into Miss P's and Jarod's minds, this initial part is lacking in that. But thats why its the initial part and why I'm hoping to wade into the murky depths in subsequent chapters.

Anyhoo, hit the old review link and tell me what you think so far. And be safe in the knowledge that it probably couldn't get any worse.....

-CrazyA  
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She could pinpoint the exact day, the exact moment when she'd become pregnant. It was a pity that she'd been unconscious at the time, she'd always enjoyed the act that usually accompanied the process. She laughed mirthlessly, a laugh to swallow the sob that was trying to escape her throat. Pregnant. She ran her hands over her face, bringing her fingers to rest against her lips as her eyes stared unfocused into the distance. She'd known for days now. The news just wouldn't settle, she couldn't comprehend the enormity of it. Raines had told her. *Told* her, like it was a way of her proving herself to them. They'd made her pregnant. 

She'd gone for the mandatory yearly physical, she thought they were going to take a blood sample, she hadn't been watching the needle, she should have known better. She'd woken up and been told that she'd fainted. She should have known. Of course she should have, it was the Center. But she'd let it pass, her mind occupied with a million other things, or just one, one man and not for the reasons that they it should have been. A lot of things should have been. But right now she couldn't think of any of it. 

She'd stood there as he'd told her that she was bearing Jarod's child and the only thought that had entered her mind was his words in the limo on the airstrip _"Is that what you want to pass on to your children?"._ At the time she'd wanted to laugh at him. Children? Who did he think that she was? Mommy dearest? And yet here she sat at an hour that was no more night then day, a life inside her. She felt the nausea build and standing on shaking legs she made her way to the bathroom. 

When she emerged she wasn't surprised to see him standing there. She didn't know whether to be overjoyed that she wasn't startled at his presence or frustrated at the reminder that there was another thing that she apparently had not control over. She had claimed the ground just passed the doorway, her hands fidgeting at her sides. He was staring at her with such intensity. She'd never seen it from him before, she thought she'd seen it all at some time in their lives or another. This look was new, it was searching and possessive and compassionate and felt like it was boring into her essence, like he was inside of her. It caused her to fidget more.

Sydney must have told him. She was annoyed with herself that she felt disappointed that it hadn't been her. 

He moved closer to her, a small step to gauge her reaction. She made none. He positioned himself in front of her, his eyes never leaving her face. 

He had hold of her waist, his hands now pushing her shirt up, an inch above her navel as he dropped to his knees in front of her. One hand held the shirt in place, the other now spread open fingered across her abdomen. She stilled. She didn't know what to do, didn't know what he was doing. His fingers moved slightly to be replaced by his mouth. His lips touched her skin in a single place, holding there in longer then a kiss, shorter then a caress. She heard him whisper to the life that was growing inside her. An introduction. Her own hand came unconsciously to rest in his hair. He was talking to her child, their child. A child no more then a bundle of cells inside her, a life they'd had no say in creating but inextricably part of each of them. Her head fell back and her eyes closed.

The quiet and intimacy of his act was swallowed by the anger that arose within her. She pushed him away, suddenly, he lost balance and fell back. She readjusted her shirt and folded her arms in front of her, closing herself off. No one had asked her if she wanted this, the Centre had made her decision for her, they were using her, using him. It wasn't enough to create a child with his DNA, they had to use her, try to capture her inner sense, she told herself that was the reason they had chosen her. It wasn't. Not wholly. They both knew that they would never have used another surrogat. It had to be her. They were using *her* against him, using her as bait to lure him in. And here he sat, still on the floor, looking at her with confusion and hurt. Yet understanding. He understood her rage and he felt it too. 

They had yet to speak. She moved further into the corner of the room, wrapping her arms tighter around herself. She loathed the tears that were clawing at her to escape, she loathed herself for not being in control and at that very moment she loathed him for not being out of it. 

"Get out" She wanted him to leave, to go before she broke.

He stood again. "No. Parker...."

"No, Jarod, No, don't...don't do this, don't come here and act like this changes anything, like this magics away everything, because it doesn't."

"I won't let you push me away Parker, not this time, it's my child too."

She inhaled sharply. She thought her chest would collapse with the pain, he was only here for the baby, why did it hurt so much? She was suppossed to hate him. 

"I want you to go" Her voice was even, as she tried to convince them both.

His hands appeared on her arms, she tried to shrug them off, to move away, to stop the burning on her skin that they caused. He held tighter, turning her around.

"Its *our* child. I'm not leaving. I'm not leaving *you*"

She jerked away violently and turned to at glare at him "Don't you get it wonderboy?! Thats exactly what they want!" Her voice rose with ever word that passed her mouth. "They want you to be here" she was practically shouted "this is how they're going to get you, its all a trap Jarod, I'm amazed that I haven't been sequestered there already for you to try and rescue. They know you'd never be able to walk away from...". _From a part of your family._ She hung her head, unable to say the words out loud, it was too personal. But even unspoken they managed to hang in the air.

"They wouldn't need to get you pregnant for me to come for you, and you're an idiot Parker if you think otherwise"

Parker shoved him away and took a step back. It was too much all at once, she couldn't have this conversation with him right now, she needed more time to clear her head. She ran a hand through her hair and moved to sit on the bed away from him. His eyes never left her, but this time he made no move to get closer, he knew she needed the physical space right now. He'd put a foot too far with his outburst, she wasn't ready for what he was trying to tell her, and he knew in his heart, that right now, *they* weren't ready for it. The connection that he felt to her went beyond anything that even he was capable of understanding, that in itself was complicated enough given their lives, now they had a whole new problem. He mentally shook himself.  
  
_No, complication, but not a problem, I refuse to think of our child as a problem._

The silence between them was palpable. 

"We need to decide what to do" Jarod's voice was low, but rang loud in her ears. 

"There is no *we* Jarod, this is my decision, I won't have a child forced on me, I wasn't asked, I wasn't consulted, this was done *to* me and I won't be a party to it. The first chance I get, this child is gone" Her tone was flat, monotoned. In the seconds that he'd been staring at her she'd shut down completely. She was out of control and this was her way of trying to regain it. 

"Parker.."

"No, no more talking. Just get out"

"I won't let you do this"

"LET me?! You bastard" It erupted from inside of her. She was on her feet again before he knew it, her fist striking his face before he had time to react and for the second time that evening he found himself on her floor. "Don't you DARE try and tell me what to do Lab Rat, this, ALL of this is your fault. If you hadn't escaped in the first place then none of this would be happening right now" She was pacing as her tirade built, hands shaking, eyes wild. "Goddamn you Jarod, you're just as bad as they are. I don't want this *freak* growing inside of me" At the word her hand gripped her stomach and in doing so the reality of what was happened to her, to them at that moment hit her and she stopped. She was breathing uneasily. She couldn't focus. She couldn't think. She was starting to panic.

"And if they'd asked?"

She heard his voice, somewhere outside her clouding mind she heard him ask but she didn't understand. She swallowed to try and regain some moisture in her now dry throat.

"What?"

"If they'd asked you to do it, would you have?" His words were measured. 

"No, of course not, don't be so ridiculous"

"Why is it ridiculous? You said yourself, its the perfect plan, knock you up with my child, let me find out, then sit back and watch me come running."

"If I'd known about it then they wouldn't have needed to get me pregnant genuise, I could have just lied, we could have planted false records, you'd still have come running, this way, they get a home made pretender to boot."

"It wouldn't have worked."

Her eyes narrowed but her tone lacked its previous venom. "What makes you so sure wonderboy?"

He gingerly took a step towards her, he could see the remnants of panic still in her eyes and knew he needed to tread carefully. "Because you can't lie to me."  
She shook her head in disbelief. The contradiction was in her mouth but his words emerged first "Anymore then I can lie to you."

_Damn him_

"You're scared. And you're out of control and I understand if you want to" he paused to take a breath to steady himself "terminate because you don't want to be a mother, or a least a mother to my child" She eyes flicked to his briefly "but please don't do something just to strike back at them, or at me. I'll do whatever you want, Parker, everything on your terms." He was gradually getting closer to her, until he was less then an arms reach away. "Whatever you want Parker."

A tear rolled down her cheek, and she swiped at it, disgusted with herself in that moment. She was silent for a long time, thinking. Turning everything over in her head. "I can't deal with you here right now."

He considered her for a moment, and kept his word - her terms. "I'll go" He moved to pick up a black back pack that he'd obviously brought with him, she hadn't even noticed it until then. Somewhere in her brain it registered that he was leaving her house without question and that she didn't think that she'd meant that, she called out his name and he stalled. 

"I meant *here*, in my bedroom. You" She faltered for a second "you can stay in the guest room" She didn't look at him, she couldn't. His eyes would be her undoing and she couldn't handle that right now. 

He let go of a deep breath and even though she wasn't looking she sensed his shoulders drop with relief. She knew he wanted to say something but he merely murmured for her to try and get some sleep before closing the door behind him. 

End of part 1


	2. part 2

Title: Bound part 2 

Disclaimer: They're not mine. And no matter how much I beg Santa to bring me my own Miss Parker and Jarod to play with, he keeps bringing me a minuature drum set instead. So I guess they're still Craig and Steve's. Even if at this point, I don't think they deserve them. Bad owners. Baaaaaaaaad.

Note: This is obviously the second part. heh, funny story, I wrote the first part and then got a complete mental block and started to cry and beat my head against a wall. After I regained consciousness.....this came to me.......huh, thats not actually a funny story at all...what with the massive head injury and all.....

-CrazyA  
******************************************************

**He let go of a deep breath and even though she wasn't looking she sensed his shoulders drop with relief. She knew he wanted to say something but he merely murmured for her to try and get some sleep before closing the door behind him. **  
  


_Sleep?_ The word swirled in her head. She felt drained but knew that sleep would evade her. Another chase that she could no longer put her heart into. Parker sat at her vanity, her shoulders slumped and head low. She absently reached out and fingered the handle of the hairbrush that rested on its top. Memories of her mother brushing her hair for her flashed briefly before her eyes. Her mind wouldn't focus for her, the anger and panic that had fuelled her earlier was still in her veins. Her body felt heavy. 

Parker withdrew her hand from the hairbrush and began unbuttoning the bottom few buttons on her shirt as she pushed the sides apart. She stared at her stomach as if trying to see the child that was inside of her. The words that she had shouted in anger about ending the pregnancy came flooding back to her, causing blood to rush in her ears. She squeezed her eyes shut against the wave of dizziness it caused. She flattened her palm against her belly, mirroring Jarod's earlier actions. 

_Jarod_ Her eyes flew open. God, he was in her guest room. Parker could hear his feint movements through the wall, knowing that he could no more sleep then she could.   
  
_They'll be watching the house!_   
  
The thought invaded her mind with a sudden urgency. How had she only thought of that now? This was the Centre she was dealing with. She swept her house for bugs and wire taps on a weekly basis as it was, but considering the current turn of events.....they *had* to be watching. The fact that they hadn't burst through the door yet was the only comforting one that she could think of, it gave her hope that they even if they were watching that they hadn't seen him. 

Parker raised her head and looked at herself in the mirror. It had been a very long time since she had looked for a reason beyond applying makeup or brushing her hair. She wasn't comfortable with the woman that stared back at her anymore. But she looked now. Her eyes were tired, nights of fitful sleep had engraved their memory around them. Parker ran a still shaky hand over her face, touching what had become pale, and at that moment pasty, skin. She looked exhausted. She looked a mess. When had she gotten so old? She held her own gaze in the mirror until the rest of the room fell out of focus, her vision no longer concerned with it. The hand that had not touched her face still rested against her stomach. Who was the woman staring back at her? A Parker? There had been a time when that title had filled her with pride and strength, now it was disgust and an empty hollow feel. Was the Parker name and legacy what she wanted to hand down to her child? Would any child she bore be able to escape it? But if she wasn't a Parker, who was she?

She remembered being a little girl and sitting with her mother. They'd gone on for a picnic and been sitting out in the sun. She'd asked her mother if she thought that she'd ever find the kind of love that her mother had found with her father. Her mother had told her that she believed that she would find that love. On that day, a day when she was still shy of her teen years, and years away from the woman that she had become, the person that she had believed herself destined to be with had been the one that had smiled at her so openly from behind a glass barrier, a boy who had always come with her on adventures through the Centre halls.

She'd loved him as a child, in the way only a child can. There was no pretense to it, no game, nothing except the feeling that used to light up in her when she saw him. It had been innocent. He'd been her best friend. Even within the chaos and agony of both their childhoods, it had been a simple time for them both. Somehow in the midst of the storm they had been stood in its eye together and watched it rage. They'd had each other and it had been simple.

She'd sat on that blanket with her mother talking about life and love and planned her childish plans of growing up and forever being with the man who now sat in her guest room waiting for her to make her decisions, pushing none on her. She thought back to every late night call that he'd ever made to her, how he'd pushed her to the edge of her reason and forced her to look at her life and those around her a thousand times over. But he'd never forced her to do something that she hadn't in her heart wanted to do. He'd never hurt her with intent, and he'd been right earlier, he'd never lied to her. The idea of that would never even cross her mind. It was Jarod. He hadn't asked her to keep the baby, he asked her to take the time to think, he'd said that he'd do whatever she wanted, everything would be on her terms. 

And she knew, she knew as sure as she was of anything that if she told him that she didn't want this baby for her own reasons, for ones that didn't revolve around hatred and anger that he would bow to her wishes. 

_...or at least a mother to my child..._   
  
"Jarod..." Parker sighed his name. The life inside of her was part of him, it was the two of them bound in a bundle of cells and growing inside her. She closed her eyes again and forced her mind into focus. She let her emotions settle from the tumultuous waves on which they had been riding. She was angry beyond coherency at the act that had taken place to her, she was sickened at the idea of being used as a pawn and she was sad, achingly sad that *this* was her life. But in the midst of it all... their was a child within her. Jarod's and her's. And she was that girl on the blanket..... silent tears tracked down her face....

....she was going to be a mother.  



	3. part 3

Title: Bound part 3 

Disclaimer: They're not mine. They're still Craig and Steve's. Even though I'd be waaaaaay nicer to them then they've been. Whatever happened to posting a post IOTH "what would have been" on your website lads? What ever happened to the website?

Note: This is part three, which is almost offensively short but I needed to write this little piece to move it along a bit. So don't throw too many sticks. Throw biscuits instead. 

-CrazyA  
******************************************************

**_....she was going to be a mother._**

Time had passed her by before she'd be conscious of its presence. It had been nearly two hours since he'd appeared in front of her. Parker swiped at her face again, determined to banish any trace of her tears before going to speak to him. She needed as much of her veneer as possible. This wasn't a time for weakness. 

She knew he wouldn't have slept. He probably hadn't even sat down. 

She didn't knock before entering, it was her home and she wouldn't ask for permission to move within it. Jarod was standing by the window. He seemed lost in thought, the first rays of light were creeping across the floor, but he remained in the shadows, invisible to any prying eyes, too far from the light for it to illuminate him. She stalled for a moment, considering the sight before her and it occurred to her that this was his life. Out in the world, looking at the light, but still unable to really bask in it. She shook it off, she couldn't dwell on that now. 

"Come back in a week." Her voice was tight, her tone a manifestation of her attempt to hold herself together. His eyes narrowed as he regarded her, barely a step inside the door frame.  
  
"You can't stay here and I can't leave tonight. A week should be enough time to get everything ready."

"A week could be the difference between you leaving from here and you being liberated from the Centre" Her gaze turned to steel at the implication that she'd need to be *rescued*, her mouth pressed into a hard line. She wasn't about to have the few decisions she was still in command of questioned by his need to act as her protector. 

"My terms Jarod" 

This was the test. They faced each other, the open space of the room dividing them, she'd drawn her line in the sand, her arms folded in front of her, head held high with determination. He relaxed his own stance, conceding to her choice. 

"Your terms." He said the words slowly, as the comprehension of her words unspoken permeated his brain. She noted the change in his demeanor and in that instant she found their usual game of reading between the lines reprehensible. Parker tucked a few strands of hair behind her ear as she looked anywhere but his face, uncharacteristically self conscious as she spoke, but then again, lately, she had begun to think that the last 25 years of her life had been uncharacteristic.

"I've spent nearly six years of my life chasing you, trying to keep you from your family and drag your ass back to the Centre." She spoke quietly but with the weight of many sleepless nights thoughts behind it. "I realised a long time ago, I think, even before Carthis that that was just a default position. I don't want you back there. What I said about wanting you to find your mother, I meant it. I want you to put your family back together, to rebuild what was destroyed." She unconscioulsy being to rub her neck, her other hand tightening around her waist "This, this wasn't stolen from you, it's not part of the family that you're searching for. But it is your family and I don't want to be a part of anything that keeps you from it anymore. This isn't how I wanted to become a mother, I honestly don't know if I ever thought I'd be one. The choice was taken out of my hands, but it's the last one that will be."

She looked up as she finished speaking. Somewhere between its beginning and end Jarod had left the vacinity of the window and come to stand by her. He reached for her hand that had stilled on her neck and she flashed to the two of them in the limo on the airstrip. He gently pried it from its resting spot and took it in its own. She squeezed his hand in recognition of the memory. This time she didn't snatch it back. 

"One week." He made no comment on what she had said and she was agonizingly grateful for it, they were words that had needed a voice and somewhere within her she had found it, but for right now she needed him not to respond. He knew and understood that, as he knew and understood her like no other. 

She nodded resolutely. 

"Alright. But if I have to bust you out of there, I get to pick the name."

She withdrew her hand from his and moved down the hall in the direction of her own room as she muttered "Here that kid, your Daddy's a comedian." 

To him she threw "Get moving Wonder Boy the sun's coming up. Or I'll be the one busting you out."


End file.
